Tuesday, April 05, 2005

A Chill Wind A Blowin'?

While tooling around at lunch today, I flipped on Al Franken's show on Air America. Franken was discussing the prospect of John Bolton becoming the US Ambassador to the U.N. with Steve Clemons, who is helping to organize the opposition to Bolton's nomination. Clemons mentioned a supposedly damning video of Bolton speaking at a conference in 1994.

My first thought was that they must be pretty desperate if they have to go back to an event that happened over ten years ago to find something to hang on Bolton. Then, when Franken played the audio from the video, I realized just how desperate they really are.

The video is from the 1994 Global Structures Convocation, in New York, NY. It features Bolton speaking on the U.N. and includes comments from a few other gentlemen who disagree with his views.

Franken described Bolton's remarks from the video as "chilling." You can watch it for yourself here.

"If the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Chilling.

"There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world and that is the United States when it suits our interest and we can get others to go along."

Chilling.

"The United States makes the UN work only when it wants it to work. And that's exactly the way it should be, because the only question, the only question for the United States is what's in our national interest. And if you don't like that then I'm sorry because that is the fact."

Brrrrr...You mean to tell me that John Bolton believes that the United States should act in our national interest and not that of the "world community"? Chilling indeed.

I can't think of an organization that needs a breathe of fresh air more than the U.N. and I can't wait for the Bolton Clipper to blow into town.